I received negative feedback on my performance review.

I've been at this job for about 2 years now, it is very much a pointless low-level corporate email job but it's a fine fit for me for now.

Up until this review, I had not received any negative feedback about my performance here. So I was surprised when my supervisor gave me "partially meets expectations" for several areas of my review- basically any category to do with social interaction/collaboration.

His reasoning? Well, I work from home two days a week, and my desk is on a different floor from his. When I am in office, I use "instant messenger" (teams) to communicate rather than just stopping by his office. He feels like he hardly ever sees me! No kidding - this was his only justification and his only comments on my performance.

Genuinely, why tf are managers like this? Hybrid work has been a benefit at my company since covid, and it took him 8 months to offer it to me. I have always been extremely responsive to him on my home days bc I could tell he was weird about remote work.... guess that wasnt enough.

Just have to add for context, my manager is a horrible communicator and has given me the absolute bare minimum of training and guidance. I'm talking no company orientation at all bc he didnt bother to sign me up for one (didn't find out til months later that it even existed), just handing me my laptop and expecting me to figure out all the company systems /applications for myself. If I went to him for help, he would pass me off to someone else or say "hmmm thats a good question..." it just makes it extra ironic that he wants to critique my "communication style" now.

Guess I'll be in my manager's office doing a little dance tomorrow morning if I want a raise next year.

Jobadvisor

That would frustrate me too — being marked down on "collaboration" when the actual complaint is "I don't see you enough" is a pretty thin basis for a formal review ding, especially with zero examples of anything you actually did wrong (missed a deadline, dropped a handoff, communicated unclearly on a project). "I feel like I hardly ever see him" isn't a performance issue, it's a preference, and it sounds like he's dressed it up as one because he doesn't have language for what's actually bothering him.

A few things seem to be tangled together here, worth pulling apart:

His actual issue is visibility, not communication. You're responsive on Teams, you're getting your work done — that's real communication. What he seems to want is proximity: seeing you at your desk, having you walk into his office. That's a legitimate personal preference for some managers, but it's not the same thing as "partially meets expectations on collaboration," and it's worth naming that gap if you push back.

The irony you flagged is real and worth using. A manager who gave you no orientation, punted your questions to other people, and offered vague non-answers doesn't have a lot of standing to critique your communication style. You don't have to say it that bluntly, but it's fair to point out, factually, that a lot of your self-sufficiency with systems and processes came from having to figure things out without much guidance from him.

On the "dance in his office" plan — I'd push back gently here, not because your instinct is wrong, but because it treats the symptom instead of the actual problem. Performing visibility for him might smooth this over short term, but it doesn't fix that his feedback wasn't tied to anything concrete, and it trains him that vague, example-free critiques are an acceptable way to review you. That'll likely resurface next cycle too.

What might actually help more:

• Ask him directly for specifics. Something like: "Can you walk me through a specific instance where my communication or collaboration fell short? I want to understand what 'partially meets expectations' looked like in practice so I can address it." If his answer is still just "I don't see you," that's useful information — it confirms this is about presence, not performance, and you can respond to it as such.
• Push back on the review itself if you can. Many companies have a process to add comments or contest a rating, especially if the stated reasoning doesn't match any documented issue. Worth checking if that's an option for you.
• Decide how much you want to manage his comfort vs. document your actual output. If in-office face time genuinely matters for how he rates you, that's worth knowing plainly — even if it's an unfair standard, it's useful to know the real rules you're being judged by, separate from the ones written down.

Do you want help drafting how you'd ask him for specifics, or thinking through whether it's worth formally contesting the review?

Stumbled into a remote position with two “supervisors” and it’s been heaven

Was offered a remote job a year ago by an old colleague. The salary is okay for my area. Not horrible but not great. But the benefits and PTO outweigh the pay (for US standards). No health insurance deductible/co-pays, 20 days vacation, another 9 miscellaneous floating holidays (including my birthday), 12 sick days, a full week off for both July Fourth and Christmas/New Year’s, most other standard federal holidays (except Columbus Day and Presidents Day), retirement match up to 6%, and it goes on.

But the cherry on top is that while I officially have 1 supervisor (who is already very hands off to begin with), I have another “supervisor” that occasionally assigns me (easy) work (and who is also pretty hands off and caught up in their own stuff). So if and when my main super ever asks how things are going, what I’ve been up to, etc., it’s so easy to pad my “work” with stuff from my other unofficial supervisor and say I’ve been preoccupied with that. And vice versa.

My workload is already pretty easy to begin with (can do a “full” day’s worth of work in half the time), so I can pretty much just chill at home half of the time and no one suspects otherwise lol

Jobadvisor

This sounds like a genuinely good situation on paper — but I'd gently push back on one part of how you're framing it.

The benefits, low stress, and hands-off management are real wins. Nothing wrong with an easy job with good perks. Plenty of people would love that.

The part that's worth a second look is the "padding" — using each supervisor's lack of visibility into the other to manufacture an appearance of being busier than you are. That's different from just having a light workload. It's actively constructing a cover story. A few reasons that's worth thinking about:

• It's fragile. The whole thing works because your two supervisors don't compare notes. One reorg, one new shared project management tool, one casual "oh yeah, how's the stuff X has you on" conversation between them, and the story falls apart at once — not gradually. That's a real risk to a job you clearly value.
• It can turn into something worse than "caught being underworked." If it ever came out that you were deliberately telling each supervisor you were busy with the other's (fictional or padded) work, that reads as dishonesty about your job, not just "not maximally productive." Those get treated very differently.
• You don't actually need the cover story. If your workload is genuinely light because the role is set up that way, that's not something you have to hide or spin — plenty of people just... have light jobs. The deception is optional; the free time isn't.

If I were you, I'd keep enjoying the actual slack in the role, but drop the active narrative-building between the two supervisors. If either one ever asks directly, answer honestly about your actual workload rather than reflexively redirecting to "the other project." Worst case with that approach is someone gives you more work — which, given how good the rest of the package is, is a pretty low-stakes downside compared to the alternative.

took an internal transfer but current department won’t let me leave for 6 1/2 more weeks

hi coming to reddit because i’m stressed and frustrated by this situation and need advice. i verbally accepted an internal transfer at my company last wednesday and immediately told my boss per HR’s request so that my boss and my new manager could “work out my start date” according to HR. HR also said they can’t send my offer letter until they have a start date.

i pitched august 3rd which is about 3 and a half weeks away. my new manager was fine with it. my current manager veto’d it and told me my start date will be august 24th.

that’s 6 and a half weeks away. i’m frustrated that i had no say in the conversation between the two managers and that this is keeping me from more pay (it’s a big pay jump) and regular hours (i work unconventional hours that have taken a huge toll on my mental health)

i also was trying to give myself a week or two inbetween jobs to go home and see my newborn niece that’s going to be born in a week or two.

what options do i have? can i negotiate? i know almost certainly that the reason they delayed it is because my coworker is going on vacation for two weeks in august and they want me to cover for her.

Jobadvisor

That's a rough spot — you did everything right (told your boss immediately, per HR's own request) and still ended up with zero input on a decision that affects your pay, your health, and your family plans. Frustration is fair.

Here's how I'd think about your options:

Talk to HR again, directly and specifically. HR asked the two managers to "work out" a start date, but that doesn't mean you have no standing to weigh in — you're the one actually affected. Go back to HR (not your current manager) and say plainly: you were not part of that conversation, the resulting date creates a real problem for you (pay, hours, personal plans), and you want to know whether the date is truly locked or just what your current manager proposed. HR's job here includes making sure the transfer process is fair to you, not just smoothing things over for the department losing you.

Loop in your new manager. They agreed to August 3rd. If your current manager's real reason is coverage for a coworker's vacation, your new manager may not know that's the actual driver — and may be willing to advocate for an earlier date, or at least a compromise (like 2 weeks out instead of 3.5), especially if they're eager to get you started for the pay-raise role.

Ask directly about the real reason. You suspect it's about covering your coworker's vacation. There's nothing wrong with naming that plainly to your current manager or HR: "Is this about coverage for [coworker]'s time off? If so, can we look at other coverage options — cross-training someone else, temping the gap, adjusting the timeline — so this doesn't fall entirely on delaying my start date?" Sometimes just surfacing the unstated reason opens room to negotiate around it instead of the date itself.

Propose a middle date. If August 3rd is dead on arrival, you don't have to accept August 24th as the only alternative. A date in between (say, Aug 10th or 17th) might be more palatable to your current manager while still getting you out sooner than 6.5 weeks.

Be honest about the personal stakes. You don't need to overshare, but mentioning you have a family event (a new baby in the family) you were hoping to be free for around early-to-mid August is a completely legitimate thing to raise — it's not a bargaining chip, it's just true, and reasonable people account for that kind of thing.

One thing worth knowing going in: your current manager likely does have real leverage here, since companies generally let departments negotiate reasonable transition windows, and 4-6 weeks isn't unusual as an outer bound. So it's worth pushing, but also worth deciding now what number you'd actually be satisfied with, so you know when to stop pushing and just take the win of the new job. If after raising all this the date genuinely doesn't move, it's not a sign the new job is a bad idea — just a frustrating and (fairly common) friction point on the way there.

My workplace bully who drove me out of my dream job got promoted

About 18 months ago I started a job teaching 16-18 year olds in a subject I loved. It was my first permanent teaching job after 5 years of applying for jobs. I was so looking forward to it. I ended up quitting with no notice after 5 weeks. I had a very informal subject support colleague - she had the same job title as me (lecturer) and was absolutely not in any sort of management role, she was just there if I had any subject queries as she had taught the subject for a long time.

She repeatedly undermined me in front of my students, made snotty comments to me on a regular basis, said things in front of my manager that looked like she was essentially trying to get me in "trouble" (manager said to me privately she thought it was inappropriate) and point blank refused to tell me information because she'd apparently already told me. I had a huge list of individual specific incidents. I was having panic attacks multiple times a week when that wasn't something I'd ever suffered from before.

I spoke to my manager about it, including about the panic attacks it was causing (in floods of tears because I was that worked up about it) and she suggested I try and talk to her about it. There were no other solutions offered. I handed in my notice the following morning. My manager absolutely knew that was why I left.

I felt incredibly guilty because I was leaving those students without a teacher, when over half of them were in an exam year. They took months to find a replacement. A teaching agency called me well into the next term saying they had a role for me...it was the role I'd left.

I was on LinkedIn today and saw she'd got a promotion to a management role.

Jobadvisor

That's a genuinely painful thing to see pop up on your feed. You didn't just lose a job — you lost the job you'd waited five years for, in circumstances that were completely outside your control and, from everything you've described, not okay. Seeing her get rewarded with a promotion while you're still carrying the fallout is a gut-punch, and it makes total sense that it's stirred things up again.

A few things stand out reading what you've written:

What happened to you was real workplace harm, not an overreaction. Panic attacks multiple times a week, with no prior history of them, starting only after this person entered your work life — that's your body telling you something was genuinely wrong. Your manager privately agreeing her behavior was "inappropriate" confirms it wasn't just a personality clash you were being too sensitive about. And the "solution" you were offered — go talk to the person causing the panic attacks yourself — wasn't a solution at all. It was your manager declining to manage.

The guilt you carried about the students was misplaced then, and it's worth naming that plainly. You didn't create that situation. A workplace that lets someone bully a new colleague to the point of panic attacks, with no intervention, is the one responsible for the resulting gap in teaching coverage — not the person who was harmed and had to leave to protect herself. The fact that it took months to replace you says more about how replaceable people aren't and how badly that manager handled it, not about any failure on your part.

Her promotion doesn't mean what it might feel like it means. It's tempting to read a promotion as "she got away with it" or "the system rewarded the behavior." Sometimes that's even true — plenty of organizations promote people who are technically competent while ignoring how they treat colleagues, especially if no formal complaint or paper trail existed. But it's not a verdict on what she did to you, and it's not a comment on your worth or your choices. You made the right call to protect your health, even though it cost you something you wanted badly.

It might be worth asking yourself what seeing this actually stirred up right now — is it anger that she "won," grief about the job you lost, or the old guilt resurfacing? They call for slightly different things (venting, mourning what you didn't get to have, or reminding yourself the guilt was never yours to carry). Either way, this reaction is a completely normal response to unfair news, not something wrong with you.

My new bosses, with no experience in the field, disrespect me without even knowing what all I do.

I run a tutoring center. For the last 2.5 years, I have been responsible for absolutely everything but paying the overhead expenses and processing the payroll. I think about my job with three "umbrellas."

The first is the "business umbrella:" marketing, sales, client retention, partnerships, planning events, kpi tracking, collecting payments, costs vs revenue....

The second is the "management umbrella:" Hiring staff, training staff, scheduling staff, managing daily operations, cleaning (I do everything but wiping down surfaces which the staff members do), ordering supplies, answering the phone and emails, taking appointments, administrative duties....

The last is the "education umbrella:" grading, updating student learning plans, keeping track of their grades in school, helping with homework, progress assessments, conferencing with parents, contacting teachers, actually doing the tutoring myself most days since we are so short staffed...

The point is, if anyone asks "who takes care of x?" The answer is me.

My old boss (who was no saint either but at least she had a background in education) sold the business to two young guys with zero business or education background. They have no idea how much I do, because they simply don't know what they don't know. That would be fine if they were willing to learn. They're not. They have spent the first month since taking over mostly twiddling their thumbs. They refuse to sit down with me to actually talk about the plan for the business, instead preferring to ignore my presence and whisper about what useless crap they want to buy from Amazon to decorate the center.

They feel it is appropriate to belittle me. Some gems I have experienced so far include: sexist jokes, randomly interrupting me to tell me to solve a Rubik's cube (clearly some weird test they got from some alpha bro manual -- they were shocked when I actually knew how to do it), sarcastically asking if I really need to be reimbursed for a $10 supplies expense, trying to pay me my bonus in cash so "I" (really, they) don't have to pay taxes on it and then when I insited it go on my paycheck they said they will have to pay it to me late... And my personal favorite: Day 1, they gestured to the chess boards and ask if we have a chess club (we do, it's been on our website for two years, did you not do any research about the business you're buying?) and when I said yes and explained I am a competitive player, one challenged me to a game. I foolishly thought this was his attempt to bond with me. Boy was I wrong. A few days later we actually did play, and I crushed him. He said, "Well, I hope you got your little high out of that and you're actually ready to work now." Sore fucking loser. Obviously that was another weird attempt to establish dominance that catastrophically backfired.

The point is, they suck. They really suck. I took this job originally because I thought it was less stress than being a teacher. For a while that was true, until my old boss decided she had no interest in lifting a finger to do any duties a business owner really should be doing. And now these two new guys have the same mentality. After being the new bosses for a whole month, they have only been present for maybe 20 total hours of our open hours. They only stayed til closing once, and it was because I had to leave. If I want things to get done, I have to mother them, but they have rudely told me several times to stop bothering them and let them run it the way they want.

Okay. Fine. I am quiet quitting. I am overqualified for this job anyways. I don't know why the business should benefit from said qualifications if I'm going to be treated like shit.

Jobadvisor

This sounds exhausting on top of exhausting — you're not just carrying the operational weight of an entire business, you're doing it while being casually disrespected by people who don't understand the first thing about what you do. The chess game story alone tells you everything about who you're dealing with: you crushed him fair and square, in something you're actually skilled at, and his response was to try to reframe your win as something to be embarrassed about. That's not leadership, that's insecurity with a title.

A few things worth separating out here, because they call for different responses:

The "quiet quitting" impulse is understandable, but worth being honest with yourself about what it actually gets you. You're overqualified, underpaid relative to your output, and disrespected — all true. But quiet quitting doesn't punish them, particularly, since they already don't know what you do. It mostly just means you're now doing a worse version of the three-umbrella job you built, for the same lousy treatment, while probably feeling worse about your own work (most people who care about doing things well don't actually feel good phoning it in, even when it's justified). If the business starts visibly cracking from neglect, there's a real chance they blame you rather than connect it to their own absence — since, as you said, they don't know what they don't know.

The concrete stuff — cash bonus to dodge taxes, delaying your paycheck as retaliation for insisting on doing it legally — is not just rude, it's a real problem. Paying you off the books, or punishing you for wanting your bonus properly documented, isn't a personality quirk, it's the kind of thing that creates legal and tax exposure for you, not just them. That's worth treating as a distinct, serious issue separate from "these guys are obnoxious," and worth getting in writing (email trail: "confirming bonus will be paid via payroll as discussed") so there's a record if it becomes a dispute later.

The sexist jokes and dominance-posturing are a pattern worth naming to yourself plainly: this is a hostile management style, not just immaturity they'll grow out of. You don't have to decide today whether that's a HR-complaint-worthy pattern (depends on company size, whether there's HR at all, what's actually been said) or just a "these people are bad bosses and I should route around them" situation — but it's worth not minimizing it as merely annoying.

Given all that, I'd gently suggest the real decision in front of you isn't "quiet quit vs. keep over-delivering forever" — it's whether this business, under this ownership, is worth staying at at all, on any terms. You've already correctly clocked that you're overqualified. Two owners who spend a month barely showing up, won't meet with you, and treat you with open contempt are unlikely to become people worth building a long career under.

That doesn't mean you have to quit tomorrow. But it might be more useful to spend your energy on a job search and an exit on your own terms, rather than a slow-motion quiet-quit that mostly just erodes your own standards while you wait to see if they improve (they've given you a month of data suggesting they won't).